


Run, birdie, run.

by MagnusOpum



Series: Harry's Descent [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Complete, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Hogwarts, Runaway Harry Potter, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:42:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnusOpum/pseuds/MagnusOpum
Summary: There is a moment in every little boy’s life where he stares down the eye of the storm, the flashing headlights of an incoming train, and realises that he has two choices;Stay and let the train hitOrGet out of the way_This is the second installment of the darkness series.
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley/Vernon Dursley, Vernon Dursley/Harry Potter
Series: Harry's Descent [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016805
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	Run, birdie, run.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I've finally finished the second installment, which is only 20'000 words, but I promise the next one will be at Hoggywarts, lol. I like waiting until they're done to update, since it takes a lot of pressure off. Thanks for reading!!
> 
> I know I'm such a fairweather writer, and I'm currently in writer's block rehab, but I'm struggling with mental health & depression stuff. But, things are looking up, and I think I'll be able to become more active. Feel free to send suggestions for the next part.

“FREAK!”

His aunt’s piercing war-cry brought back a stuttering hit of nostalgia, as if they had all been transported back in time to when Harry was only the despised cupboard-dweller and still possessed a paltry degree of bodily autonomy. She sure knew how to replicate her husband’s ear aching holler. _Or is this her latest seduction attempt, am I the new prize?_ Harry wondered, having noted the blistering swell of a hickey on his uncle’s throat the last time the man had tried to reinstate their “dalliance” – he’d only had his shirt undone and flabby gut out in the open before Aunt Petunia stormed into the room with eyebrows so thick with dramatic disbelief and fury that they may as well have been drawn on in permanent marker.

_Or perhaps this is Aunt Petunia’s version of dirty talk..._ Harry mused, considering that possibly the woman had grown tired of her failings and wished to cut her losses by proxy of a prideful threesome. The bile that made a reappearance in his throat reminded Harry why he spent most of his time out of the house, away from his erratic guardians and unexpected book-worm cousin, instead moseying about Aurora’s ghostyard, stealing glimpses of her latest literary theories and pedantic annotations.

_Oh the high life_ , Harry sighed, ducking a stray frying pan shaped missile from his aunt and weaving his way to the door. He pondered whether or not he should shout into the house “I’m off to school”, but was in a self-protective mood and wouldn’t mind escaping the Dursley residence with his whole head on his shoulders.

“Freak, come back here. Where do you think you’re going?” Aunt Petunia thundered to the front door, which due to his internal slow-poke reflection had cost him a successful prison-break – damn you consciousness. Her prada heels – who even knew whose child she’d needed to sell to afford them, but her longing to regain Uncle Vernon’s lust knew no bounds – shrieked in resisting disapproval against the finely polished floors and Harry had a feeling of dread that it would be him who would need to refurbish the floors come home-time, not the heels.

_Life is unfair and I want compensation, but life is unfair so no compensation is forthcoming. Fuck._

The obvious answer to Aunt Petunia’s question was of course ‘school, ma’am’. But, in the Dursley household, no one wanted the actual truth or the clearly visible blatantly in your face _you know I’m right answer_. All a Dursley – bar maybe Dudley, he was a yet-to-be-decided-upon bizarre phenomenon – really wanted was a sweating snivelling Potter at their feet, kissing their prada shoes and thanking them for it.

_Family, am I right?_

Harry bowed his head low, staring at the Aunt Petunia’s obscenely ostentatious shoes. Illegal happenings had definitely sponsored their change of residence and he’d be keeping an ear out for shoe store day-light robberies.

“Nowhere, ma’am,” Harry murmured pleasingly. He really didn’t need another split lip. Even Mark Maccam was beginning to grow suspicious, and that boy was as thick as a slab of fridge-butter.

Aunt Petunia bristled, “Is that right, you little slut? I could have sworn I saw you walking to the door. So, either I’m blind or you’re a lying little shit.”

There were no right answers in this situation; there never was one. If he’d have told the truth she would have simply found another facet of him to insult or blame – it didn’t really matter what he said, the result was the same. And, his aunt was clearly sexually frustrated due to her involuntary bout of celibacy, thus there would be no reasoning with her, at all, ever. She was a brick wall.

_Apologise_ said the ghoul. It had been returning gradually to its former self as his aunt’s danger levels and proximity to Harry habitually increased; soon it’d be back to its true personality; emotionless, distant and uncaring of anything. The ghoul truly was an idol to the community at large. Who else could stand by and watch as Harry got beat up 24/7? That took balls and a steel stomach.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Harry amended, the words tasting rotten on his tongue. Vile.

Aunt Petunia’s vindictive smile was more of a grimace, as if she was just too old for this shit. She sighed heavily, momentarily dropping the role of malign demented being, and placed her right hand on the corresponding hip. “Just get the hell out of my house, you foul boy,” she scolded wearily, looking seconds away from yawning.

Not one to ignore an easy out, Harry scampered through the door as fast as his legs could carry him. One would think no sex with uncle bad-touch would mean she’d sleep better at night Harry snarked, waving at a suspiciously dressed man – was that a dress in Surrey? Did this poor ugly drag queen wish to get his arse kicked? – who looked five seconds from a massacre. The long-nosed weirdo simply snarled at him poisonously and Harry had to respect him for that.

_Danger_ said the ghoul, and Harry power-walked a little quicker. One had to trust the ghoul, after all.

-o-

The school day passed as slow as snot, as it always did. Boring information he already knew. Boring drama that didn’t affect him. Boring whispers of his delinquency. Boring, boring, boring. Some days he wished for a murder or a horrific accident, something to stimulate his mind. Maybe he should murder someone? But... no, he’d be the main suspect, neighbourhood “bad boy” as he was.

Only when he indulged in the odd case of time travel, closing his eyes and letting his body run on autopilot, did it fly past – yet Harry had been enjoying the freedom of consciousness. He wasn’t entirely sure as to why, but this paltry feeling of autonomy felt right. So little felt right nowadays, tainted as he was.

For example, his ‘girlfriend’. Sally, his dull as death girlfriend, badgered him to let her help him with his homework. Harry acquiesced, watching with his sparkling green eyes that promised pain for the condescending yet well meaning girl, as she filled in his answers. Once she left, of course, he rubbed out all the work and swindled himself a D grade homework sheet. He wouldn’t let ‘his’ girl ruin his perfectly effective scheme of mediocre results.

Throughout the day, as was customary, Dudley passively led his gang of cretins, Harry included, and they initiated yet another unsuccessful raid on the girl’s toilets. Piers was caught smoking behind the bins and got suspended, and Mark got given a lecture on laughing at his friend’s suspension once Piers employed his recently learnt puppy dog eyes. Surprisingly, on his horrid acne-infested face, they worked seamlessly. Then, pathetically, Dudley traded out a few of his secret stash of books in the school’s library whilst outside Harry died of boredom.

Mr. Veneer had been giving him the ‘eyes’ again, and Harry wondered if the powers that be needed to funnel him more hush money. Had it been a bribe or a threat that had kept the teacher quiet?

After school Harry meandered his way to the trainyard, and kicked up his feet in Aurora’s oasis of freedom. She rarely spoke to him, other than to snort in derision or inform him as to her latest “edits”, but it was Harry’s favourite time of day. Nose clogged with old mildew and fetid rust, eyes slitted as he power-napped, and whole body lax with the knowledge that Aurora’s sharp and disquieting canines could tear the throat out of any unfortunate and cocky trespasser. This was the high life, the most fruitful echelon of society, cocooned in Aurora’s sanctuary.

Within these feral high jinks of hide and seek – Harry hiding and the Dursleys not really seeking _(I guess that's just called 'hiding' if you want to take the fun out of everything)–_ eventually the time had to come for him to wander on home. A reservoir of inner strength replenished within him and a dawn of hope inside him extinguished by the reality of his residence. Aurora didn’t both lift her eyes in farewell, and perhaps it was delusional and misguided to imagine otherwise, but Harry almost always made an aborted wave-like movement in her direction; prepared to take the leap.

The sky bleeding orange, children safely tucked away inside the condemning walls of their houses, parents flicking on the tellie to watch the evening news blare, and toaster ovens’ ready cook meals coming to a satisfying ding, Harry strode up to the front door of the Dursleys’, world precariously foggy beneath his feet. He didn’t bother knock on the door, knowing the action was reserved for “actual visitors” and alternatively simply took a hold of the handle and pushed inwardly. The door acquiesced, albeit reluctantly, as if it too held contention for his place in the building, and Harry sleuthed past, semi-confident that he could sneak unnoticed into his cupboard, relatives none the wiser, and wait out a few hours before dinner need be prepared.

Foot aloft, cupboard door squealing to a state of openness, eyes less wary than they should be, Harry heard a definite and blood curdling shriek of a floorboard; one that meant Uncle Vernon stood there behind him in all his looming grandiose monstrous majesty. Harry let his hand fall from the lock of the door and turned slowly, attempting to keep all vital organs out of harm’s way yet still make the move look natural. Back to his cupboard, body slightly tensed in case his muscles would need to take the hit instead of his fragile skeletal structure, ghoul buzzing in his skull like an alarm bell, Harry waited.

The strangest thing left his uncle’s mouth, “Harry, would you please meet us in the living room? We need to have a discussion.” Then, as if the world hadn’t just crashed around Harry’s ears, Uncle Vernon twirled around and pranced off, looking awfully jovial as if Christmas had come 3 months early.

_This can’t be good_ Harry thought, scratching nails into his thigh.

_Agreed_ said the ghoul, as if in afterthought.

Nonetheless, Harry betrayed every instinct he owned, and walked sedately forward, _1 2 1_ ringing in his skull like an army salute. He felt every grain of wood and rug and polish under his feet, memorising his surroundings for future enthralment in case this was the last he ever saw of the outside world. A box secreted away in his chest thrummed, an exotic and unnatural power brewing beyond his control, and Harry shut it down, forcing all fear and power inside its confines. The living room beckoned him forward and Harry, resolute and stone-cold, heeded its call.

-o-

What he didn’t expect to find sitting in Dudley’s chair, with a scowling sprawling expression a mile high, was the drag queen he’d seen on the street. It felt blasphemous for such a man to exist inside the Dursley’s abode, as if a commandment had been shattered, and the air felt syrupy and clinging as if the whole room had been filled to the brim with honey; Harry felt invariable dread that said honey would infiltrate his air passages and incapacitate and kill him.

_On a cheerful note_ the boy considered, the sheer comicality of this moment getting to him, _I don’t think I’ve ever seen Aunt Petunia jealous of how a man has outdressed her before._ It was true, however much the drag queen needed a personality check if he was going to make it in the business, the outfit fit his slight bony figure to a tee. He had investigated sexuality out of concern that his uncle had well and truly broken him and had stumbled upon the drag community tangentially.

The drag queen cleared his throat, bringing gnarled stained yellow nails to his mouth as he coughed, “Hello, Mr. Potter.”

Harry didn’t bother saying anything. If he did, either it would incriminate him to have spoken to one of the “freaks” (and god did the Dursleys have something against _them_ or _the other_ ) or neither Dursley expected him to speak, for _nasty little boys were better neither seen nor heard._ He blinked with lassitude and the female impersonator sniffed through his nose as if he had smelt something quite horrendous, yet did not feign surprise.

Aunt Petunia turned to him and Harry was hit by a bolt of lightning _(ow, that burns.) Eyes up_ said the ghoul as her gaze met his, and however unnatural it felt to meet someone’s eyes, Harry was in “polite company” (no matter how maddening it seemed that this was their choice of company) and thus needed to play a part. Later on, no doubt, Uncle Vernon would chastise him for meeting her eyes or Aunt Petunia would slam him against numerous objects and scathingly criticise the manner in which he dabbed on makeup to hide both of their misdeeds. But, that was later, and this was now.

“Bo- Harry. Harry, darling, speak to the nice man please,” She said it wearily, as if this was commonplace. And Harry supposed it was commonplace, but not for the reasoning that Mr. Drag Man no doubt thought it was.

Never one to rebel in front of not one, not two, but three witnesses, two of which with a penchant of treating him like a chopping board, Harry agreed placidly. He was dreadfully perplexed, but the key to surviving life was adaptation, and he would be a more manoeuvrable and stronger dinosaur than the rest. He met the drag queen’s eyes politely and smiled that charming magazine smile, “Hello mister. Nice to meet you.”

For a second he was caught in doubt, maybe he wasn’t a drag star, maybe he was just a very very very extremely ugly woman, but all worries absconded upon the man’s concord; he nodded robustly. _Nice cheek bones_ Harry noted, thinking it no surprise that the man chose this profession.

_Focus_ said the ghoul, grating on his mind like mortar and pestle. A pliant Harry refocused, all contentions and emotions squirreled away in his safety deposit box of the soul.

All three adults were seated and if Harry had been a mind reader maybe he would have known it was viable to sit also, but he didn’t. It just wasn’t how things worked. Aunt Petunia sent Harry a searing look, face turned away from their resident fashion worker, and said in a cloyingly sweet voice, “Harry dear, please take a seat.”

Harry slammed himself into the nearest chair. No doubt he’d have bruises painted on the underside on his thighs tomorrow from such a crash landing, but that was no different to usual. Mr. Drag Man narrowed his eyes at him, as if Harry was a strange specimen under his microscope, and Harry wondered if the man was judging his splotchy makeup. He lowered his eyes, feeling a little lost, and waited for when he would be called upon.

_After this is over_ Harry reassured himself _I can return to my cupboard and reset._ Everything will go back to normal. Everything will be manageable again.

Uncle Vernon was using his schmoozing business man voice, the same he employed when he entertained guests. He boisterously laughed in that deep damning reverberating tone, “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Explain to the poor boy what you’re doing here.”

Harry, eyes still directed to the ground, gulped. Was he being sold into child prostitution or pageanting or something? All of this smelt mightily fishy to his attuned senses of survival.

_Breathe_ soothed the ghoul, its voice a dull yet assuring metronome. Harry let his lungs fill, held it for two infinite moments, and then released his breath. He felt his mind clear slightly, but desperately ushered the fog back into position. A clear mind is a dangerous mind.

“Yes, well, Mr. Potter. I am surprised your relatives hadn’t yet explained this, but I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to explain in their place. You see, my name is Professor Snape, and I am from a school in Scotland called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Harry’s vision glittered to black, but he nodded, pretending all was well.

Professor Snape (aka Mr. Drag Man) coughed daintily, seeming ill at ease, “Well, Mr. Potter, it’s like this. You are, by all means, a wizard. An entity capable of magic. And, you are offered a position at our prestigious magical school, to be taught how to hone your craft in safety and...” His last word felt rehearsed and distasteful to the man, “fun.”

Aunt Petunia’s clawing sing-song words demanded, “Harry, dear, lift your head, would you?” Harry lifted his head to see his aunt lean over to Professor Snape and ‘confess’ ruefully, speaking softly and as if Harry would not hear a thing, “Mr. Snape, our dear Harry is a little shy. Don’t worry, he is paying attention.”

Harry blinked. _Focus_ said the ghoul. He blinked again. The less brain power it seemed like he possessed, the less of a threat he was.

Uncle Vernon commented, his voice as deep as the sea’s bedrock, “Ah yes, our Harry, quite the little squirt, isn’t he?”

_Why are they speaking in such a way about me? And, they can’t honestly expect me to believe that magic is real. I’m ten, not four._ Harry brewed silently, attempting to become unnoticeable in this unsettling conversation where the main focus was him.

“Ah... good,” Professor Snape said, looking as if he’d wished he’d chosen a different choice of outfit for this visit. The prim-and-proper buttoned-up Dursleys and their obnoxiously bright abode made his black potato-sack dress stick out like a sore thumb. He leant back in his floral armchair with hesitance, “As I was saying, it is a fine school. And, it is the closest magical establishment to Surrey, so travel will not be an issue. In fact, the Hogwarts Express, a train that runs from Kings Cross to Hogwarts, is quite helpful to the untravelled and such.”

Aunt Petunia commented vapidly, “That sounds wonderful.”

Uncle Vernon grunted in a noise that could be interpreted as agreement. As rehearsed as Harry was in Vernonspeak, there were the odd occasions that intelligible thought was beyond the man.

Professor Snape’s porcelain expression of restraint twitched. Harry had a dark longing to see his face crack into a million separate pieces. He continued, “Yes. As I was saying, September first is when the train leaves. In each of your mugg- er, non-magical information sheets you have been provided with a list of supplies and recommendations.”

Harry’s aunt and uncle nodded along, as if they already knew all of this, and Professor Snape shot them a piercing glance. Harry held his breath; looking beneath the surface of the Dursley household was a sure fire way to entreat yourself a death sentence. His onyx eyes flattened, and he said, “It seems both of you are quite knowledgeable to this information already. Do you require me to proceed with this explanation?” He seemed a little miffed that he'd had to speak to them, at all.

Aunt Petunia demurred, “We’re ever so grateful Mr. Snape, but we are already equipped with the necessary knowledge for the school. We wouldn’t want to keep you from more important business.”

Professor Snape nodded briskly, picking himself up from the chair and brushing off his dress. Harry shrunk into his own seat as the man walked past, not able to control himself for that split second. Stupid, stupid he scolded himself, not liking to burgeoning rage in his uncle’s eyes. The supposed m-word practitioner sleuthed out the end of the house, saying farewell with haste as if sensing the dark air that permeated the house.

Harry listened to the front door click shut and smothered his breath, knowing explosion would be imminent. His heart’s frantic pounding began to thud in his ears and the world swooned around him. An absolute silence coalesced in the room, swirling with danger. Uncle Vernon rose slowly from his seat. He stepped, _thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk_ towards Harry, each movement causing all the hairs on Harry’s arms to stand up on end. The air was tinged with hysteria.

“Boy,” His voice was moist and hot on Harry’s ear, the fog began to roll inwards, the ghoul began to scream from the back of his mind, “In your cupboard.”

Harry scampered, ducking an outstretched hand to his collar, and slammed himself into the vacancy under the stairs. He was blinded by terror. He cupped hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and curled up on the stained thread-bare mattress, hiding under the blankets and praying.

(by praying he means mumbling _please, God, please God, please, God_ over and over again under his breath)

M-word didn’t exist. It shouldn’t exist. It didn’t.

Time flickered off and on like his cupboard’s faulty ceiling light. He saw the world in still shots; curled up on the bed eyes closed, a knocking on the door, a voice indistinguishable from white noise calling his name, the click of the door, the squeal of it opening, the feeling of his muscles relaxing, ready for blows to rain down from heaven.

“Harry,” said the voice, quiet, tentative. He squeezed his eyes closed, counted _1 2 1_ , before forcing himself to become human once again. The cupboard was a safe place to let the deceits of the days unwind and flake from his skin, but now the cupboard was open and people expected him to play a part. He slithered regretfully into his skin, rolling over so he faced the door, and recognised Dudley’s silhouette in the doorway, fat and boulder-like.

“Hey Dudley,” Harry greeted, pretending there weren’t red rings around his eyes and ugly splotches on his face. He was Dudley’s friend now. That was the role to play. No more real life Harry.

Dudley shuffled in place, looking hesitant, his head caught in the halo glow of the hallway bulbs, dull brown Vernon eyes sparkling. It was strange to think his father was such a monster. They both had the same eyes... yet what lay beneath was so astronomically different.

Dudley inquired, “Why’d Dad send you to the cupboard in the daytime?”

Harry smiled easily, pulling himself up and together, making sure Dudley couldn’t see him leaning on the doorway for support, “Does he ever need a reason?”

Dudley, the epitome of an uncomfortable sandwich, leant forward, a treacherous pen stain on his cheek. Harry’s eyes flickered to it, warning in his voice, “Make sure to clean your face, Dudley. You wouldn’t want them to see that.”

Dudley, all pale and white and ghost-like, peered at himself in the hallway mirror, thumbing the splotch of ink. He wet his thumb with saliva and wiped off the evidence of his forbidden edification. He returned to his post at Harry’s door, watching him through narrowed eyes. “Thanks,” he said, cautious.

Harry shrugged, picking at the skin on his fingers. _Say you’re welcome_ the ghoul warned. Dudley may be his 'friend', but once a Dursley always a Dursley. It was a stain on his character, not removable by tongue and spit and thumb and friction. His last name was no disappearing ink stain.

“You’re welcome,” Harry complied, forcing the muscles in his jaw to soften and become likable.

Dudley stared a moment longer, transfixed, frozen, before the universe prompted him to movement. He scratched the back of his neck, his posture unconfident and susceptible, “Mum wants to see you in the kitchen.” He peered at the ground for a second and Harry had the feeling he was torn, “Just... be careful, Harry, she’s... She’s not herself.”

Harry mentally snorted. _Su-ure, not herself. Accept it dear duddikins, your mother has a hungry hyena for a heart._ “Okay,” Harry said, standing up and leaving the sanctity of his bedroom. He rocked up to the kitchen, the war drum back in his skull, Dudley disappearing up the stairs like a ghost. Harry’s hands were behind his back in a demure stance, his head bowed. He stared at the black scuff marks on his feet, from the dust in his cupboard, and watched mesmerised as his toes arched and clenched and loosened. Dancing feet.

“Boy,” His aunt greeted him, relatively cordial for her. _Shocker_ Harry thought.

Harry didn’t dare step forward, waiting to be addressed properly. One never knew with Aunt Petunia. She certainly adored keeping him on his toes. It was more painful that way.

_Stay still_ the ghoul whispered, quietly as if it too was afraid of her wrath.

Out of his peripheral, tracing the black and white linoleum tiles of the kitchen, he saw her maudlin figure creep forward. His breathing stuttered, like the _whirr whirr_ repeat of a scratched record, a hiccupped phrase, a jittered column of sound. Keep still. Keep still. Maybe she won’t know you’re there if you make yourself still, and silent, and still.

His eyes traced a dirty stain on the ground and Harry fought the potent urge to gather cleaning supplies. His fingers trembled with held in want. _Must clean_ said his lizard brain. _Must stay still_ countered the ghoul.

“Sit,” She instructed, her words short and lateral.

_Fuck you, God_ thought Harry, blaming the universe at large. (so much for prayer)

He flinched at her words, lost in indecision. Was this a test? Did she want him to sit on the floor? On a chair? Was it up to him? If he sat on the floor, would she be satisfied or think he was being a smart alec? If he sat on a chair would she think that he thought he was an equal, a human, or worse a better? Panic sparked in his mind, all his thoughts felt clunky with choked up wisps of mist and impending terror. Harry couldn’t understand it because he was never scared. But, right now, his aunt’s presence and capabilities looming above him, he couldn’t breathe at all. He felt smothered with raw animal fear.

_Calm_ soothed the ghoul, words emotionless but meaning heavy. Listen and calm it instructed, a map in this terrible indefatigable sea.

“On a chair, you idiot,” His aunt finished, her tone sounding as if Harry was the most idiotic boy she’d ever met. _Maybe I am_ a stray thought of insecurity floated on by and Harry knocked it out cold, kidnapped it and hid it away in his little lock box. He floated forward, little more than a zombie on wheels, and felt his body slump onto a kitchen stool.

He suppressed a whole body shudder as her sharp talons lifted his chin. She caught his eyes ruthlessly, a brittle chalice of blood – wine – held in her other hand as she spoke, “We’re sending you to this school, boy, this magic school for little freaks like you. And, you know what?”

_The question is rhetorical, say nothing_ the ghoul warned. Harry bit into his tongue, tasting blood.

A bitter sort of humour painted her smile, as if she was self aware that this whole grand roller coaster of his childhood hadn’t been a walk in the park, “You’re not going to say a word about any of this. Not the cupboard. Not the food. Not the chores. Not the makeup and why you wear the makeup. If you need to, tell them you’re just a little gay boy who likes to wear it. I don’t care. As long as we sound good, like we are, because we are good to keep you, then it’s okay to say. Do you understand me?”

_Nod_ the ghoul told him, and like the marionette he was, Harry nodded.

-o-

After his aunt’s nice little chat with him, she twisted her lip for a bit, finished her wine, and sent him off back to his cupboard.

He pressed his ear to the wall, feeling his size, as if he had shrunk to be a thumbtack, stuck against the notice board to be peered at and inspected. The door was hollow and thin, and Harry was reminded of Aunt Petunia’s conversation with him in her salon chair, in which she admitted to being able to _hear_ them. He coiled his body, tight like a snake, and eavesdropped.

“Maybe... Hogwarts would not be so bad for the frea- boy, Vernon. It might help you, erm, overcome these urges and feelings.”

“But, pet, the boy, he, magic? Wasn’t that why we treated him differently all these years? How can we go against our morals and send him away to be poisoned by that school? He is only a boy. They’ll corrupt him.”

“Do you want this marriage to work, Vernon? Because I have been trying so hard and you... All you seem to do is resist me and go after that boy. Do you not love me anymore, is that it?”

A beat of silence.

“Of course not, pet. I love you. You’re my wife, of course I do.”

The silence lasted too long.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this boarding school is just what we need.”

“I knew you’d see it my way.”

-o-

Harry didn’t go to sleep. He stared at the ceiling, eyes open the in blackness. The ghoul remained silent also. They both seemed to know the soon-to-eventuate future. He controlled his breathing, interlocked hands steepled over his abdomen as his chest rose and fell. The burrowing quiet of his room seeped in from all sides, and he heard every fat footstep down the stairs as fate cornered him; his uncle’s heavy weight on the stairs was a memorised fact by now. He’d learnt it off by heart, just like the twelve times table.

12

Harry felt his eyes film over. He blacked out. Or, it felt like that.

24

Sudden dark. Heady silence.

36

His whole head was filled with a thrumming tune. A thumping. A war drum.

48

He felt his body loosen, muscles calm, emotions seep from him until he was nothing but a hunk of floating flesh.

60

Weightless.

72

Formless.

_Go to sleep, Harry_ said the ghoul.

Sunday Evening came early. Shocker. Shocker.

-o-

Harry didn’t know why, and maybe it had been a foolish decision in the first place, but he’d always thought his uncle had grown tired of this. With Aunt Petunia’s revitalised desperation, his inevitable removal from the household, and the apparent introduction of this m-word school; he’d thought Uncle Vernon had grown sick of it. Of him. Of the clandestine visits. Of the heat of flesh. Of the betrayal. Of the...

Well. Harry had grown accustomed to no Sunday Evenings. His mind had, too. His body had, as a third party. And the ghoul... well, the ghoul never trusted in anything, least of all Uncle Vernon, so perhaps the ghoul had always known that his uncle would come in the dead of night once more and...

He couldn’t quite say it anymore. Wasn’t that strange?

Either way, Harry was hit with a sudden and unfathomable realisation that if he stayed, it would only happen again and again and again and...

Well.

He really didn’t know why. He really didn’t understand what had prompted this. The last time he’d left Jeff had died, and Harry had died also – or at least his hope had. It made no sense to do this. He had no money, no food, no proper clothes, no idea of where he was even going. But. Somehow. He left.

The cupboard door creaked open easily. No one ever locked it anymore, and maybe that was a testament as to how complacent he had truly become. They didn’t even need to keep him there anymore, he remained willingly. He slipped a foot out, not knowing the time. He wasn’t wearing any clothes, because of Uncle Vernon and the.... and his uncle had apparently entered a phase where he preferred complete nudity while he...

Well. Anyway. Nonetheless.

Harry crept out into the hall, heart in his throat, eyes wide and glowing in the dark. He had this massive and strangling well of will in him, this frantic need to escape. The silent plodding of his bare feet on the soft ground spiralled a frenzy of gooseflesh on his nakedness. Every inch of skin was covered in this jacket of dots. He poked at the tiny pockets, scratched at a few to watch the blood as if he were sightseeing, and made his way to the end of the corridor. Tall and brutish and unforgiving was their front door. Made of stone – or wood in this case. He slid the chain-lock along, taking note of its steady scraping journey through the golden passage, and popped it out. Door now unlocked, he turned the handle, pulling it open and becoming engulfed in the flush of biting night.

He left with nothing but his skin and soul. He wanted no souvenirs from his stay at the Dursleys. Nothing to remind him but himself.

What a sight it was, a tiny child butt-naked sprinting down Privet Drive, his face bright with freedom and incoming terrified exhilaration. He was hysterically crazed, knowing he should be clandestine in case of the ever-watchful powers that be, but couldn’t help this sudden flooding of emotion. At the end of the street, puffed and drained of energy, this euphoria sapped from him.

Every shadow was his enemy and every neighbour his spy. Harry clamped a hand over his undulating breaths, squeezing tighter and tighter as seconds passed, and shuttered his eyes closed. The two globes of his pale as a moon bottom, fittingly, faced Number Four for a moment, in a split second of utter scandalising pay-back. World hardly weathered and smile a bleak frown, Harry trudged his way towards his well known sanctuary; the trainyard.

-o-

“Boy!” Crowed a drunken lady, stumbling out from a train’s still-moving carriage like a jump scare from a horror flick. Harry jerked, so much that his heart left his chest, the world swum, and all of a sudden he was moved through time and space, atop the highest building he’d ever seen.

_The fuck_ he screamed in his mind, the wind cruel up here on his naked skin, eyes blurred in the suffocating dark.

“Harry?”

He swivelled around, heart still deadly fast, and spotted a familiar face hidden in a patchwork of pylons. He stepped forward, squinting to see Aurora in the black. Her green tinted face, the weird mask of her ugliness, cocked at him like a gun. He rushed forward, away from the ledge, and leant down.

Her hands, normally working intricately on the pages of books, now nimbly untucked copper wires, smudged with engine oil and elbow grease. _Thief_ the ghoul said. _Friend_ Harry parried, not quite able to parse what was happening.

Aurora shrugged, unashamed, and went back to her business. “What?” She said, “You thought I ate books?”

Harry blinked, overwhelmed, and seated himself beside her, reaching out hands to help. She smacked his knuckles, warning him off, and snarled, “Stop it! You’ll only make a mess. Your nails are bitten too short to help with any of this and your hands are weak and scrawny.”

He curled up, all of a sudden cold and alone. Her expression didn’t soften, but she did ask, “Why are you here, on my roof, stark naked and shivering, in the dead of night?”

Harry shrugged in a non answer, feeling tender and vulnerable. Aurora growled, tearing at the wires, apparently keen on ignoring him for his silence. They worked, together, with Harry overseeing and Aurora accumulating a hefty stack of copper, no doubt to sell for a judicious price. The moon looked out over both of them, big and bright tonight, making the filching of precious metals an easy feat.

Once all wires were accounted for, Aurora bundled them up in a well used piece of cloth, smuggling them under her shirt. Harry, enthralled, saw a flash of scaly flesh and felt a question rise up unbidden in his mind. He followed her upwards as she scaled a ladder attached to the side of a water tank, her movements familiar and practiced as if she had done this a thousand times. The roof of the tank was flat, material slick and metallic, and Aurora knelt, stashing the wires away, whilst Harry dangled at the edge, close to the drop.

“Were you trying to die again? Next time, please don’t do it near me, I don’t need the fuzz busying up my areas.” Her words were unsympathetic, like the ghoul’s. She held no pride for suicide, apparently, but Harry could understand that. It was cowardly. To escape. To give up. _Wasn’t it?_

“I think I love you,” Harry said, watching her teeth flash ‘danger’ to the very stars above.

Aurora rolled her eyes, sidling up beside him, her legs crossed and back in perfect posture. “Yeah, Romeo, that explains why you keep trying to die around me.”

Harry leaned back, the smoothness of the water tank’s ceiling a simple solace. “I wasn’t trying to die,” He said, as if that made a difference.

Aurora was disbelieving, “Oh yeah? So, you magically appear up on my roof, right at the very edge, looking out like you’re about to jump. I’m homeless, not an imbecile.”

Her sarcasm lightened him, somehow, and Harry continued, feeling a little disbelieving himself, “I don’t know... I just... I teleported.”

She barked with laughter. “You teleported all the way from your itty bitty cupboard to Sudden?”

Harry squirmed, uncomfortable, “I wasn’t in my cupboard.”

Silence permeated the air for a few moments. She tapped him on the shoulder and he rolled over to face her. Aurora inquired, and one could mistake her curiosity for kindness if they fooled themselves, but Harry knew he was only one of her books, only another character to fill the void, “Was it... him?”

Harry laughed humourlessly, his face dark and heavy, “It had been. But, no, I’m... I... I ran away. I’m running away.”

She tilted her head, as if asking why. But, she knew very well why.

He answered her silent question, “I’d rather jump in front of a train than go on one more simpering date with Sally.”

Aurora squinted, the hoods of her plastic face dulling the expression, “...don’t joke about that stuff.”

_Who says I’m joking?_ “Yeah, sorry, whatever.”

The two kids both remembered that fateful night in the trainyard. Harry playing chicken with no thought to move out of the way. Aurora swooping in, a gilded saviour of the night. It seemed so long ago now. He broke the silence, “Whatever. I’m leaving, tonight, you coming with me?”

Aurora shrugged, standing up and readying herself for a descent down the ladder, “Got nothing better to do.”

### -o-

 _Aurora doesn’t find nudity distressing_ Harry told himself whilst wrapped up in a dingy second hand dress (maybe Mr. Drag Man had just been a victim of circumstance?) that was still better quality than all of Dudley’s hand-me-downs _she just prefers when I don’t die of hypothermia and therefore isn’t incarcerated for neglect related murder._ With no idea where they were going, ghoul apparently deciding that this situation was safe enough to be completely unhelpful and hence utterly silent, Harry followed Aurora through yet another boulevardier back garden, filled with high end trimmed hedges and sad sagging plastic slides that belied a lack of use. It was clear that when Aurora said she had nothing better to do, what she really meant was that she was taking charge and Harry was just a poor sucker along for the ride.

It felt nice, he had to admit, being able to sit back and let someone else take the reins. Yet his heart still stubbornly skipped a few beats, soaked in fear that Aurora may abuse her power.

“Where are we going?” Harry queried, popping a head over a white picket fence as he attempted to leap. His capacity to exercise had gone down significantly since his daily routine of Harry Hunting had been abolished. Malnutrition, likewise, wasn’t a helping hand for good health.

Aurora deigned not to answer and simply hopped another fence with enviable grace. One would assume with a clunky monstrous boxy body like hers she would be slow and clumsy. One – and Harry – would be wrong.

Five houses later with a hefty collection of snapped off twigs in his hair and other back yard souvenirs, Aurora decided to respond, “To work.”

That did not fill Harry with any confidence and his exuberance for leaving the Dursleys had slowly but surely been wholly replaced with a fretful brooding perturbation. His body, although in constant motion due to their travel, paradoxically itched to do something. Knowing himself, Harry assumed that this genetic predisposition was most definitely negative and in some way related to explosions of the internal guts and organs. Harry Potter Luck, no doubt.

“Work?” Harry prodded, ineffectually scaling a solid wall of tin.

Aurora glared at him from above, like a scorned goddess, and offered down a hand, “Honey, not everyone has the luxury of laying on their arse all day. Some people need to work for a living.”

Harry scoffed, feeling a little insulted as she pulled him up and over the fence with a strength he had not anticipated, “Do you call the maintenance of an entire household ennui?”

Aurora scoffed in return, not bothering to brush the dirt off of herself since the eighth layer of her skin was completely comprised of dirt. She was a walking mud monster. “ _Ennui_? What are we, French? No, I’m just saying you’re used to order and stability, rules and regulations, sir and ma’am and aunt and uncle and blah blah do as we say. Right now, we are hoodlums, we are rebels, flying out into the world with no safety net. Believe me when I say this, it’s going to be work.”

Harry blinked then tilted his head as if analysing a strange alien life form that had m-wordically spontaneously appeared right on Aurora’s very place in the universe, “Poetry. I guess it really is late.”

Aurora hiccupped a begrudged laugh, as if even her baser biology refused to ease into friendship, and attempted to disagree with the very moon in the sky, “Late for some, early for others.”

“Let me guess,” Harry said, grit working its way into his pores as he crawled commando style along a high security pristinely kept back garden, “It’s lunchtime for you.”

His throat hurt a little from all of their banter, he wasn’t used to such sustained speaking. His elbows bit at him for the tough exercise but Harry bit back; a trick he’d learnt from his uncle’s penchant for love bites.

_-a swirl of grey fell down from the sky, falling splat over Harry’s face, as if he was caught in a body of nothingness, a sigil of the soundless. Such harmony, it relaxed him to his very soul. He was displaced, out of time-_

He forced the fog back, blinking the fuzziness away, and resumed his pursuit of Aurora. Some part of him feared being left behind, left for dead in the middle of nowhere. The concern abated once her figure drew near once more, locked up in the motion sensor security lights like a cliché James Bond scene; the spy money shot. He realised he must have missed Aurora’s response, as caught up in the fog as he had been, but proposed that perhaps there hadn’t been any response at all.

The end of the line, baby.

Aurora was a burglar of the night, a thieving spectre never glimpsed by mere mortals. As she weaved her way through back alleys and over grown terraces, Harry felt burdened with the gift of witnessing her. He felt as if he had been robbed of clear thought, of any pretence. His soul cleaved down like a razor blade, a sublime shimmering portrait of distrust. Anyone with the ability to awe or entertain Harry was subject to the blaring alarm bells of ultimate caution pounding in his ears. Aurora, his only confidant and possible predator, became Enemy Number One.

But, she was also his only guide.

The string of houses and their immaculate backyards halted, becoming open land, a wide expanse of grey silks, and Harry traced Aurora’s footsteps pace by pace so as not to tread on glass or other unsavoury mischief. Her face, illuminated by a street light, hardened as she brought a summoning finger to her lips and made the universal ‘be quiet’ gesture. This was her world now.

She led him to a lacquered bench, the only spot not graphitised, as if a blatant landmark or meet up spot. Neither actually sat on the bench, rather they waited, in sickly silence.

“Mongrel,” said a voice from the shadows, the texture of gravel and cigarette smoke. Harry closed his eyes as a male figure lunged forward, the glint of a weapon – whether knife or worse – quite evident.

Aurora smirked languidly, her posture never dampening, and remarked, “The usual deal.”

The man raised an eyebrow, “No haggling from you tonight?”

_Danger_ said the ghoul, speaking in tandem with the man as he said, “I am willing to bargain.”

The man took in Harry’s fair skin and petit stature, as if he was a prized cow ready for consumption. Harry was hit by an epiphany. Aurora’s grotesquery, her status as a living deformity, her life as the monster that goes bump in the night and not the child that flinches from said bump, was the perfect protection. No one needed to take a sharp toothed, blood-thirsty demon hostage, no one wanted one as their little pet or present. Aurora’s malformed body, her eyesore nature, was the most effective shield from unwanted predators.

“Mongrel, trade me that pretty piece of arse there... and I’ll pay you double,” The slip of moon prowled forward, all towering and lanky and dangerous.

Aurora snarled with a full set of teeth, “I sell wires not bodies.”

The promise of his knife leapt forward out of the shadows. Aurora didn’t flinch, rather she said, fatal teeth in full view, “I also sell dead pervert’s bones.”

The man shook his head, retreating from her, and settled right beside Harry, his presence domineering and obvious. He pressed the length of his outer thigh against Harry’s. He wanted to throw up and break out into fits all at the same time. Harry could taste the mint on his breath, that’s how close he was, and the pernicious warmth emanating from him was all too familiar. He half expected a floral comforter to spawn out of thin air as a hall mark of the universe’s opinion.

“Twenty,” the man argued, a finger perched not three centimetres from Harry’s skin.

Aurora didn’t bother with a response.

Harry felt a rash of gooseflesh spawn as the eel-like slimy man traced a finger across his bare shoulder, whispering, “Thirty.”

She unravelled her parcel of glinting wires, showing off the sparkly blood splatters on her gnarled claws. The man acquiesced, finally, sending one last regretful look Harry’s way, “Fine, Mongrel.”

The bills felt like rotten flesh as he shoved them at Harry. Aurora limply let the man take her copper wires, her face narrowing to a ball point as she thoroughly dissected his departure. “Men,” was the only thing she said, but Harry thought she was wrong.

_Monsters_ he thought _not men_.

The ghoul hummed from its seat, it heralded _you will one day be that monster, never will they hurt you again_. And Harry said _thank you_ because no matter how wrong it sounded, better them than him.

-o-

_2_ Harry began to count prime numbers in his head, now seated at the bench as Aurora had gruffly instructed in order to “keep my clients’ eyes on the shine of copper not flesh.” _3_ His knees had defensively arisen onto the seat, his arms naturally wrapping around them, and he sat there like every cliché runaway he had ever read about. _5_ The longevity of the day – and night – was washing over him like a thick film. _7_ All Harry really wanted was to fall asleep curled up in the safety of his cupboard but ( _danger_ said the ghoul, ringing like an alarm to remind Harry that it was time to awaken from this pipe dream of a ‘safe’ cupboard) those thoughts left him as rapidly as they had arrived. _11_ It was an empty night, nothing seemed to exist in this moment of solitude, just Harry and the bench and the stars above. _13_ _All I’m missing is a runaway train_ he thought.

“Nice night,” Harry nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a patented I-will-not-harm-you voice from two paces to his left. He ducked his head into the crevasse of his knees, pretending it had only been a voice in his head ringing out and not a devilish doomsday bell.

“Nice to meet you, random bench kid,” the voice continued, noticeably feminine in nature, which only doubled his unease as it sounded achingly familiar to Aunt Petunia’s syrupy manipulative tones. She had the kind of mouth that could twist and curl and sculpt itself to any which way. She could convince you the world was flat with only a lisp and sniffle. It was eerily similar to when she reeled him back to shore with tenderness and affection, only to tighten her grip and let blood and cruelty fill the air, a mist of bloodshed.

_Say nice night_ said the ghoul, a manual for how Harry was meant to live his life with a semblance of sanity. “Nice night,” he parroted, feeling more puppet than flesh.

Eyes still shut the mysterious figure whistled, as if filling the vacancy his awkward silence had left, and asked, “...Do you have any interests?”

_Interests are dangerous_ said the ghoul _if you like something, they’ll take it away._

“No, ma’am.”

“No interests,” she chuckled, “Kids these days, I guess.”

He winced to himself. He didn’t like the sound of that.

A cricket chirped nearby, as if reminding them that the world still spun whilst painful conversations were exchanged. Harry wondered if the woman might leave him if he kept his mouth shut and eyes clenched – but he knew that even if it felt like the right solution, to bundle up and tense like a turtle pulling back into its shell, it lacked finesse and cunning. Sharks scooped turtles right out of the water after all; hiding was hopeless when the world was a stage.

Harry frowned from his display case of a bench.

“Got a name?” She inquired, sounding as if such a question was completely normal to ask of someone. _It probably is_ rationalised Harry, suddenly paranoid that this random lady would kidnap him and sell his organs or... hurt him. _Why can’t I say the word anymore? It isn’t a dirty word, not really_ Harry fretted to himself, eyelids shuttering like blinds as he tried to drown out her magnetic voice.

“Harry,” He mumbled into his shivering arms. The wind picked up, drowning him in a torrent of ice. He tensed further, trying to salvage some leftover warmth from eel-man’s presence.

Then this random arse lady decided that what Harry could really do with wasn’t money or food or common sense, but a lecture-esque rant, “Harry, I know that being a kid in your situation can be dangerous, especially at your age, and I want you to know that there are other options. I can call people, right now. I promise. And, these people exist just to make your life easier, to help you, to save you from this situation. We can go to a youth shelter if you like. Or, if you’re very brave, you can tell me why you’re out here and I can call the authorities, to explain your situation and protect you. Just say the word, Harry.”

_You sit on the blackmarket bench for **one** _ _second and people already try to preach their religion to you, Jesus_ Harry sighed, disappointed in humanity. _Wait ...is do-gooding a religion?_

Harry lifted his head from behind his shielding arms, taking in the shadowed figure with tense caution. _Good doesn’t shine in these parts_ he mused, eyeing a dead bird carcass left haphazardly only paces in front of them, a display of human ‘kindness’ at its best. Throat choked, head heavy with a cocktail of fog, weariness, and fatigue; he wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

How should he play it? Fancy lost kid with the charming magazine smile? Poor child braniac just looking for shelter for the night? Neighbourhood delinquent trying to palm off drugs? Abused little boy whose uncle had just-

_Stick to the script_ he ordered himself, restraining his arms by his sides as they itched to get up and smooth soothing patterns. Harry didn’t know why, but he couldn’t stop shaking. It wasn’t even that cold. He’d had worse.

_I’ve had worse._

Random lady seemed to be more talk than action, she wouldn’t expect him to test her waters, to aggravate her and anticipate a response. Harry seeped into her auburn eyes, only visible in the delayed flickering of the overhead streetlamp. His smile exuded neither prettiness nor charm; it was grit and blood and a body count. He thought of the cold impersonal epithet of Jeffrey Reginald, of the trail of bread crumbs that led back to an abandoned squatter’s hideout and an overflowing pile of m-wordical contraptions, their busking gear for their runaway picnic. The pile of confectionary, the final crumb, it led to a little raven haired boy – more bird than boy, more flight than grounded, more air than air-head – with a body fashioned tight and impenetrable. Curled up in a sewer drain. Cupboard looming on the horizon. Fate spread out across his anguished face.

Oh, the era before the box. Oh, the innocence. Oh, the vulnerability. He’s long since built himself up as a fortress, an unreachable tower, a taunting cruelty. A mask that never lifted. A solid sturdy trunk built on a mountain of bones. Oh, the futility of safety when he knew...

_Hurt her, scare her, protect yourself_ Harry forced himself to return to reality, blanking out the world, eyes focusing on the here and now, body built like a battle ship.

Weapons armed.

_Good_ said the ghoul, egging him on, agreeing with his chosen solution, as Harry’s lips became Aunt Petunia’s deadly devices. He was only a vessel for pain and humiliation and pettiness. He’d donned his chosen vice, his fixed heaven, his act of hedonism. Method acting, one may say.

_Be selfish. Hurt or be hurt._ Harry didn’t need that much convincing.

The do-gooder, as naive as a new born dove, hadn’t been prepared for Harry J. Potter’s extreme deluxe speciality experience of deceit. “Listen lady,” His words were knives imprinted into her flesh, all sharp and biting and scarring, “Why don’t you move your pretty little behind away from me before I make you?”

Not a question. Not really.

A pit opened up inside him as he spoke, but life was life and options weren’t limitless. Perhaps that split second of deafening doubt had shown visibly on his face, for Little Miss Helpful’s expression became sure; her mouth a solid line. Her hand reached out like a peace treaty, an offering, and Harry couldn’t suppress the instinctual flinch that worked its way through every muscle and stretch of sinew within him.

“Harry,” She spoke softly like butter, sweet and spreadable. “It’s okay. I know you’re frightened right now and it’s difficult to trust. I understand.”

Soft like butter. _Butter that I’m not allowed to eat_ Harry growled his treacherous heart into submission. Clearly, he was jetlagged from his and Aurora’s impromptu evacuation from hell, and thus his mind was working at a ninety percent rate of congestion.

_Scare her_ the ghoul advised, sounding barely there yet everywhere at the same time. Faint, oblique but omnipresent. Harry’s kind of guardian angel. The one that always hovered but you never noticed; the illusion of freedom and independence yet lined with a footing of surety.

A match made in heaven.

He shoved all doubts into the bulging box inside his chest.

There was no room for hesitance and stuttering. Childhood had passed him by long ago and the time for mistakes had left him once he’d left the womb. Life was a battle; gussy up, son.

Harry remembered the conscious Sunday Evenings, the forced awakenings, the feel of hands on flesh and prompted expected acquiescence. He remembered the taste of fabric in his teeth, remembered picking out the threads as he brushed and flossed and threw up in the toilet. He recalled how butter soft that doona had been, how harsh the action truly was, the fatal silence, the morbid suspended aching... Oh, it never really ceased. He was still edged, still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the dark of cupboard to greet him once more.

He remembered being rag-doll Harry. He remembered being foreign underpaid Mexican maid Harry. He remembered slave Harry, staircase Harry, invisible Harry, Dudley’s best friend Harry, school dunce Harry and all other related iterations. He knew their names by heart; he was them. All of them. He remembered being the makeup palate for his own hand. He remembered, almost elegiacal, the times of Aunt Petunia’s gardener, he remembered soft soil and a bosom of earth and preening delicate flowers. He remembered being the dappled sky of bruises across body. He felt it like it was yesterday because it had been yesterday. He remembered Jeff’s eyes, the promise, the thrill of running away, the torn pants, the ER, the tender doctor with the silken hands vowing that Harry would never return.

The cold stethoscope. The scribble of pencil to admission forms. The legality of it. The surety of it. The sincerity. The emphasis on never as if it would actually come true.

He remembered returning in spite of such a solemn oath. He remembered fickle joy and ragged pain and the animal gleam in his uncle’s eyes that following morning as he awoke in the cupboard, as nothing had changed. The victory. Oh, he remembered victory.

He remembered sacrifice.

Miss Do-Gooder smelt of flakiness and foster care and malleability. The powers that be that had so seamlessly orchestrated and controlled others would make play dough out of her.

No time for doubts. Scare her the ghoul reiterated, noting the amble of her words, the left hand in her pocket that twitched for a mobile, the 999 call etched into her expression. A blank canvas. An easy canvas. A doll.

_Do it. Do it. Do it._

He hated that he loved the feeling so much. The rush of power, of him above and her below, of hand skating along skirt and shocked animal fear in the air. Delicious. Mine. Safety. He hated that he thought of safety while he pressed her against the bench, he’d warned her off and if she wouldn’t let him go then how was he meant to...?

He saw himself in her eyes, terrified and doe-like, wet eyes, youth and naivety. Harry felt like saying run little red riding hood as the do-gooder shrieked, trembling like a shaking clam, her soft flesh so subtle and smooth, like butter, like butter, under him, so soft-

_The fog had rolled into town and it felt in that moment as if it would be staying awhile. Once the fog pulled up in a four wheel drive at your house, you knew you needed to make room for it. For it. It. The lulling tide, the clogged flow, the faint dribble of a babbling brook, the safety, the serene. Oh, the fog hadn’t come to Harry’s home, the fog **was** home- _

Time travel, wicked.

When Harry once again opened his eyes, the bench was empty. Little Miss Do-Gooder had fled. The street was a wanting corpse, circled by vultures of overhead airplanes and their flickering scarlet eyes of menace.

_Safe_ he thought, alone at last. Harry began to count prime numbers again, to infinity. _2_ The world a spinning wheel _3_ that always spun the same _5_ and landed on repeat, repeat, repeat. _7_

-o-

Aurora’s abrasive personality and the antipathy she held the world in; that was what Harry loved about her. One could never mistake Aurora for Aunt Petunia. She wore no makeup. Her clothes were rags. She could care less for gardening, propriety, gossip nor adherence to the rules. Aurora would never swear by the bible, would never grandstand to her flock of cronies, would never slide a plastic smile onto her lips with her latest expensive couture lipstick and pander about her poor delinquent nephew. Aurora would have never married a Vernon. Harry was reasonably certain Aurora hated even the ideas of romance, love, sex and everything in between. She was a veritable feelings graveyard.

You had to adore her for it.

So, when she woke him with a hard booted kick to the side and a drawling, “Up and at’em, shitface,” Harry couldn’t help but feel at ease. It had been said with affection, surely.

-o-

Soaked to the skin, Harry dry-heaved into a clogged sewer drain, retching violently when he was reintroduced to the rancid smell emanating from below. He absolutely hated dumpster dinners, but it was starting to look like, tonight, grown-over rice and dirt-encrusted chicken patties from a restaurant’s rear end would serve better than hunger pains and onset dizziness. It was their last night travelling, they’d finally managed to enter the peripheries of outer-city London, and soon they would enter what Aurora liked to call the Dead Zone; dilapidated sagging buildings, indefinitely half-finished road-works, and a perennially overcast sky as if Zeus had decided to rain down his lightning bolts specifically and exclusively in the small radius of London’s slums.

This was the true homeless district. So far, Harry had come across gypsy children hiding themselves away in bright fluorescent tents while singing maudlin tunes and crying into colourful blankets, and old creaky-boned veterans sleeping on park benches and bus-stops as their eyes glazed over like the perfect iced bun and their body was possessed with shell-shock shakes, but herein lay the big guns; the notorious soggy cardboard box houses, just like the movies, the dodgy needles that crowd-surfed down the line like a twisted game of pass-the-parcel, and pale ghostly children that huddled together like hoards of Emperor Penguins praying to outlast the storm, their skin blackened with necrotic flesh, scorn, hunger and soil pressed so firmly in that it had become one with the soft tissue. These white and black piano keys, swaying in the snow, dance the Penguin Dance, youngest in the middle, fattest at the edges with the most blubber to shield them. Hopefully the babies survive the hypothermic nights.

Harry had no penguin huddle. All he had was Aurora and her three metre distance policy, instated ever since Harry’s night terrors had taken a turn for the worst. He now lashed out with violent vehemence if held by her in the night. He had the ghoul, too, but it hardly counted anymore. It was a pasty gritty bird-like creature, a shadow of its former self, with a gnarled haunted gullet and emaciated beak; it liked to sit on Harry’s shoulder, talons digging in, and whisper dark secret things into his ear. It no longer issued instructions that he could follow, and Harry was starting to terribly terribly terribly regret leaving the Dursleys. The ghoul seemed lost and listless, caught up in the inertia of constant travel, of brain-sickness, of old wet dog food that even a dog had to admit was past its date of death. Firmly buried, that was how Aurora liked her steak. Not with gristle. Not lean or raw or red. No, she wanted it to have that acquired exotic flavour that only occurred once the coffin flies caught the pheromones of a rotting carcass. _Take a whiff of that flavour, darling._

They travelled by dusk and dawn. Night was a goldmine for under the table dealings of stolen goods; Aurora liked the cover of darkness to hide her petty crimes. They slept in shifts in the daytime, keeping guard over one another. Harry’s skin itched whenever Aurora fell into a land of dreams, because he couldn’t be sure he would be able to protect them. He’d escaped the Dursleys, apparently. It hadn’t quite sunk in, yet. He still felt as if Aunt or Uncle would pop out from every shadow and drag him back to his cupboard. He checked every London girl pharmacist, Aunt Petunia’s favourite drug store with all her cheapest yet most expensive-looking makeup brands – Harry especially liked the homebrand concealer, it hid so well – and every used car parlour and convenience store, so sure that Uncle Vernon would fly out like a jump scare with a bloody monkey wrench in his hand and bash Harry’s skull in. He’d be so relieved too, just to see them, just to see that they still existed in the same world that he did. All of this felt like a dream, an artwork of unreality and he wanted someone to pinch him. He hated this... the calm before the storm, the tension, the moment of unsurety before the blow landed. Before he woke up. Would he break a bone? Would it hurt? Would it glance off him?

He hated not knowing. The suspense was killing him.

His body seemed to have lost all use; it didn’t take sex, it didn’t cook or clean. It was listless. It didn’t want to get up at dusk to help scavenge. It didn’t want to go to sleep at dawn. It ached and it whined and it whinnied like it had never done before. He had a Dudley living in his body. He couldn’t do anything. He was nothing, all of a sudden. He was a tax, a waning toll.

He got the shakes and shivers all over even when it was warm out, as if still in shock, as if still falling. They hid in bushes, a quaint comical sight; head first, legs handing out like some strange modern art piece of dendrophilia, slotted together in a jig-saw puzzle of tepid flesh and blue lips, permanently juxtaposed. It was harder now, because the shrubbery had shrivelled away as the city-scape expanded. Aurora, with her distance, no longer let her warmth soak into his skin, and they slept in separate bushes, like a detached pantomime of an estranged couple. He liked to test fate, sometimes. To test if he was alive, if this really was just a waking dream. He’d come to a conclusion, having not uttered a word for days outside the confines of his mind, thoughts echoing and clanging together like clumsy drum kits. Realisation had bashed him over the head with a cricket bat, until the hard coconut of his skull had caved in.

_It doesn’t matter._

_It doesn’t matter if I behave or not. They’ll hurt me either way. In fact, it’s better that I act out, so I can have some measure of control over the punishments they dole out._

He wasn’t there anymore. Apparently. He’d left, physically, but his mind hadn’t caught up yet, and this new rule still applied. So, he tested the boundaries, just to check he was still awake, with all eyes ruptured. He rattled the leaves of their bush. He caught the eyes of strangers in the street. He lingered, in a drawn out moment of danger, when Aurora hooked an arm through his elbow and beckoned him to leave a crack den they’d just traded with. He wondered what it might taste like, what this certain trail of death might be like to follow. Would it exhilarate him? Would he wake up? Would he finally feel the cold again on his skin instead of this never-ending coat of bubble-wrap?

In the numb faceless crowds of London, his eyes searched out grey beards. His own special breed of character profiling. Long lanky men with skin wrinkled like prunes and eyes sunken in as age wrapped rings around their trunks. He waved, sometimes, drew his shoulder up and breezed his hand from side-to-side. Felt the breath of wind in his fingertips. He could swear, sometimes, that something touched his fingers, as if he’d run them along a lattice string of the finest gossamer. But perhaps that was a dream, as well. Perhaps all of this was only a fever dream his mind had concocted in desperation, a imaginary wasteland to free him from the reality of his life. How likely was it that after ten years, he just upped and left one night? There’d been nothing special about it. Chances are he was still curled up, wrecked, on his cupboard floor.

He tested the edges of this unreality, pressed against walls as if expecting them to be baseless, to fall in beneath the light pressure of his fingertips. He walked around and around the block, counting street signs and open windows and clothes lines, as if expecting them to fade out of existence the moment he turned away. He considered asking Aurora if she loved him, for he’d know it was a dream if she said yes, but when he tried to palm the words, he found his lips couldn’t purse right and his tongue was stuck in the gouge between his bottom teeth and his palate. He could only whine and whimper, a wordless broken thing now that he’d left the only home he’d ever known. He reread old newspaper clippings, drenched in street slickness, examining the individual letters, seeing where the ink connected them and the word splayed out like a blanket of stars, causing his eyes to blur and tears to grace his cheeks... or was that the rain that he hardly felt?

London reminded him of nights curled up with Jeff, like cubs in a den, licking each others’ wounds. He remembered trying on ridiculous hats and overly large plastic novelty noses and glasses and tricks. He remembered playing cards in the twilight, his hair slicked back with sweat as they worked for their pittances and pities. Jack black. Ace of spades. The cheat cards he used to carry in his sleeves when Jeff grandstanded on an old bucket they’d found in the gutter to his temporary followers, the tourists and the curious locals who’d roll back the film on their cameras and grin at the something-not-quite-right novelty of two children playing with fire. They’d never needed an assistant, no fancy black sequin dress or makeup. There’d been no makeup back then, nothing to hide. Oh, he ached for Jeff, sometimes, for a simpler time when he’d thought that escape was possible. When escape had been more than a pipe dream, a delusion that he’d wrapped himself in like a comfort blanket. He was sure, now, that this wasn’t real, and the only solace he took was trying to get caught by winking at old men in tuxedos and strange quilted dresses that assured him that this must be a dream. After all, who wears robes in the middle of modern London?

He’d been got, once. For a moment his heart had skyrocketed and pure relief had flooded his senses like a double short of adrenalin. An old man with half-moon spectacles and a cane with a lion-head as the handle, that worked at a Bloomsbury Books had enigmatically tipped his hat at him. Pointed what must have been a trick wand at him, and offered him a bouquet of primroses, all too symmetrical and identical to be real, but when he’d cut the stems and thrown them into a puddle of vomit, the juices of life had flowed from them, as if flowers too bled. It’d been too similar, too idiosyncratic, too weird. He smiled maniacally, thinking finally, the waiting period can be over, but the old man with the cane simply hobbled on by, nodding to him politely, before disappearing amongst his shelves of old tomes.

False alarm.

The last traces of him seemed to disappear, as the bruises came to the tail-end of their life cycle. Puffy and yellow and faded to a thin urine colour as they seeped into his skin. At night, when they stopped to hide, in public washrooms or the eaves of closed shops with curtains drawn tight, Harry would trace the fingerprints on his hips, the weal on his back, the cicatrices that marked his entire body. The makeup had worn off too... He almost had nothing to remember them by, and he found himself missing the sneer of Aunt Petunia’s lips, her drunken gait, her swinging fist that felt like destiny. Who was he without her fist to mark him?

The ghoul would argue with him on all of this. Everything. Its mind had inextricably linked abuse and pain with Delphine Green and her caterpillar to butterfly transformation. _Look_ , the unhinged instinct would cajole, _Delphine had been trapped in that polaroid, you thought forever, but she escaped by imprinting the curse onto Sam. You can do the same, you can save yourself, just make sure the world knows that you fight back, that your hands can curl into whirling fists more naturally than a hand job._ It would scan people on the streets, murmuring quietly in Harry’s ear like a confidant. The three year old girl with platinum hair and butterfly clips, left alone and unguarded at the shopping centre. The eight year old boy with cigarette burns on his arms, fresh ones, the scent of ash on his ghostly skin, and track marks all the way up to his shoulders. A crazy cat lady knocked unconscious, skirt ripped; easy prey, already taken once. A baby left in a dumpster, a blank slate to invoke whatever the ghoul so wished.

The ghoul would say _You’d choose their crimes, their punishments. Their food, their water, all as you please. Keep ‘em hungry or fat or wanting or just right. Treat ‘em like a dog, have ‘em eat from silver bowls, have ‘em eat dirt or shit or all manner of disgusting things. Whistle and they’ll come. Heel by your side, like a good fucking bitch. Come on, it’d be so easy, Harry. You could cover ‘em in snow and sleet and sluice until their limbs freezed off. You could gouge out their eyes and watch the syrupy bloody dribble from the empty sagging sockets. They’d be awfully dependant on you if they were blind, Harry. You could reclaim all your uncle’s sins upon you, Harry. Make ‘em shriek and scream your name and say they love you and then make ‘em go quiet and docile and blank. Strip ‘em down to nothing. Nothing but flesh and your own personal doll to move as you wish. Beat ‘em, and you know how to keep it from killing them, you know all the tricks. Burn ‘em, I thought you said you were cold, Harry, this could keep you warm. Bite them, if they’re yours, they should let you mark them. Spit on them, until they respect you, until they fear you properly. Carve the letters of your name into their body, as a permanent mark of ownership. Collar them. Keep them. Then throw them away, to the dogs, and let them be eaten alive. Re-enact every wrong doing. Every tear you’ve ever spilled. You could teach them to respond to the name Bitch or Freak or Fag or Kitten or Honey or Darling or Harry. You could crack every bone in their body and make them thank you for it,_ _**t-thank you, Uncle Vernon.** He could cut into their flesh like meat, eat them if he wanted, no food should go to waste. He could push their face into the mud and drown them. He could lock them in a sewer grate. He could cut off all his limbs until he had only severed stumps. He could gouge out his eyes. It could run into a wall over and over until the bricks set correctly and it was correct. It could beat the freakishness out of itself. It could rip out all its- _

_-the fog rolled in, like it always did and always would, holding him like Auntie had never done and unlike Uncle to the nth degree and back again. Harry let himself fall back into the fog's cool embrace, the icy silence, with great relief. It made him wonder if perhaps life was simply too much for a boy like him, and he would always need to sail through with glazed... glazed... It was quiet inside the fog. Dark, too. He'd never truly noticed before, been too distracted, and he'd only ever surfaced when forced. There was nothing to pull him out now. He had endless hours... and it... He found it hard to think, to feel. That was the point, after all... but he... it..._

_Breathe_ said the ghoul, stolid and definitely not phased, for no matter how rocky the shore, the ghoul never faltered. Not even if it was going insane.

He’d always appreciated the ghoul’s candour, its emotionless stability, for it took a certain type of hatred to stare at a broken thing and smile; he liked not having to guess what the ghoul would do next, because Harry already knew. The ghoul was only survival instinct. Hurt or be hurt. It wrote the rules to a game that others had invented and left for dead. It read the room, the tumultuous rising tide of feelings, the moue of Dudley’s mouth, the mien of Uncle Vernon’s sinister tumbling gait, the rolled back shoulders and deadly precision of Aunt Petunia’s sobriety. Wine in hand, she cried and cringed and lashed out. Breath stale with drink but frenzy dissipated, her hits landed accurately and the fermented poison had run its course, leaving her no longer weakened and loose-limbed like cooked pasta. There had been a reason the ghoul always reminded Harry to keep the wine glasses clean and inviting; one needed every advantage one could get in an imminent battle to the death. Harry never had to try to guess what the ghoul was feeling, and assess, because the ghoul was borne from stone and had no heart. Even now, amidst the uncertainty of inner London, the ghoul persisted in hurt or be hurt, for they were the only words it’d ever learnt by heart, the only nursery rhyme that it’d been nursed to as a babe.

The ghoul couldn’t fall in love, either, and betray Harry that way. It just was. It just existed. His guardian angel. His black-winged devil-angel.

-o-

It’s his first kill. 

Harry can tell. He’s all do-eyed enthusiasm and shaking trembling hands, like he’s jacked up on adrenalin, like he’s about to get laid for the first time, like he’s riding down the highway at a thousand miles an hour. The whites of his eyes are wide and searching, like beams blaring from the guards’ keep, shrieking through the inky black of night. He keeps looking over his shoulder. Twitchy. Green. Practically salivating at the prospect of _finally, finally, giving into the thirst, fulfilling the need, to kill, to maim, to undo a person_. Harry bets he’s practiced already, on rats, on insects, on the neighbours dog, on voodoo dolls all dressed up in his sister’s clothes.

Because that’s what Harry is dressed in. His sister’s clothes. Puffy undergarments. A magenta nighty. The funny sick thing is that they fit perfectly. Waif-life, sickly thin, slender-framed Harry slips right in as the kid maneuvers his legs through each hole in the bloomers, as he gestures for Harry to lift up his arms and let him smother him in the nighty. _Practically a girl_ , he bets the kid thinks, _but it’s not as bad to kill a boy. Not grimy. Maybe I’ll even sleep tonight_. 

Harry wonders if the kid is already thinking about what he’ll do after, what he’ll have for dinner, what time he’ll go to bed - or if he’s transfixed, thoughtless, floating on the high of finally quenching the thrum. The gorey ghoul perched on his own shoulder, like a gargoyle made from grit.

Harry’s ghoul is quiet like a trick step. He can feel it, just out of sight, with the same sense you have for your hand when it’s out of eye-line. A sense of where your other pieces are, your arms and legs and dangly bits. The ghoul is humming, humming, like an engine purring to life, waking up from sleep after weeks of decay. It’s like the ghoul is going back to school after years at a menial job, and is stretching and using and exercising muscles in its brain that it had forgotten existed. That it had thought were vestigial organs. Harry is the victim again, and like a machine clicking on, the ghoul remembers its true function.

_Survive._

The kid turns away, as he shuffles around instruments of torture on the dresser. His shoulders have drooped a bit, at Harry’s lack of struggle. He’s disappointed to have no excuse to use the eye-gouging metal spoon or the stolen-from-mum’s-work scalpel or the knock-out drugs to pacify his terrified victim. He must think Harry is shell-shocked, to be so complacent, to be so malleable and soft. He can’t hear the constant muttering in Harry’s ear to _be quiet. Behave. Danger. Danger. This is a killer. Go along with it. Behave. Wait. Be patient. Don’t move. Don’t flinch. One leg after the other. Be sweet. Keep sweet. Danger-_

“Okay, okay,” The kid turns back around. Slow like the smooth tightening neck of a python. Harry didn’t get a good look at him before he’d been stolen from his hiding spot in the park. He sees him now. He’d be able to identify him to the police sketch-artist. 

_Shame_ , Harry thinks, _that the kid doesn’t know that the powers that be prevent me from turning him in. He must think that there’s no turning back now - now that I’ve seen his face._

He’s thin, like a stalk, and bug-eyed, with thick lenses on his glasses. He walks with the kind of air of someone who is always overly cautious that he’s going to trip. It makes Harry wonder why someone so careful had stolen him in the daytime, when Aurora was sleeping - why he’d been that reckless. But there’s a sheen of madness in his eyes that he recognises from Aunt Marge’s Jack Russell. When you see the bone, and you have to have it. (strangely, he doesn't remember ever meeting Aunt Marge. He's only ever heard of her. But the image of her frothy-mouthed dog is picture perfect in his mind)

“Okay, don’t scream.” It feels like a strange request, since Harry forgot how to speak back in the yellow tunnel tube at the park. He doesn’t have the ability to scream, only to stay still and pretty and pet-like and pretend he doesn’t exist. 

With a long arm, he reaches out and touches Harry’s arm. The part just above his elbow, where the edge of the nighty’s sleeve hangs. His fingers edge up the sleeve, up, up, up. Harry can’t feel it. He can’t feel anything, he realises, absently. “Please,” the kid tacks on, with a lop-sided smile.

The ghoul whispers, _follow along. Be sweet. Wait. Wait._

Harry wonders why he’s still awake - why the ghoul can’t just take over like it does with Uncle Vernon. But he doesn’t resist. He may be confused, but he knows better than that. 

-o-

Harry wakes up cold, like he’s been speared by ice. His face is submerged under water, but unlike the usual fogginess and numbness and cotton-ball nothing that submerges him - this is real water. He licks his lips, tastes it - _chlorine._

It’s his first kill, and the kid has never really known how long it takes for someone to drown, especially a child. He wonders if the kid is counting the seconds in his head, for a personal record. Wonders if he’ll be the type to keep trophies in the future, locks of hair or an ear or his green as life eyes. 

Harry forces the thrashing to stop after twenty long seconds with his lungs burning up a storm. He hangs limp, lets his arms go rag-doll, lets his back float up. The kid is still holding the back of his head - probably to make sure. Harry stays limp. Stays. Stays. Listens to the ghoul some more. He knows he can only last like this for so long.

Or so he thought. 

The ghoul is saying _trust me. Trust me. Keep still._ But time keeps passing, and Harry is still drowning. His head is getting fainter and fuzzier. _I’m going to die._ Yet, he stays limp. He ignores the burning. He floats and he floats and he counts and he counts _156, 157, 158_ , and he begins to realise that no one should be able to hold their breath for this long. Believe him, it hurts like hell. He’s being seared from the inside out. There is no anesthetic for this kind of raw, animal, panicked pain that is flowing through his body like a thousand volts of electricity. But he is still awake. He is still alive.

_Shhh,_ the ghoul hushes, _shhhh_. Harry stays still, keeps his eyes closed. The hand at the back of his neck lets go, sloshes as it leaves the water. He can feel no heartbeat in his ears - he is the living dead. He is the ghost boy floating in the lake. He is not breathing, yet is still alive. It makes no sense. He cannot explain it.

_I should be dead. But I’m alive._

Harry listens to the ghoul’s next instructions. The ghoul, perched right beside him, whispers, _he is leaving the room. Place one ear above the surface. Hear his footsteps get fainter. He is fetching his knives. Now is your chance._

Harry, the perfect passive victim, pulls himself out of the water. He gulps in a massive breath of air, holds in his cough. Quiet as a mouse, he looks around the room. _There, the window,_ the ghoul instructs, _jump._

Harry presses up on it - it’s locked. He can hear the kid’s footsteps coming back, like death’s toll ringing out, drawing nearer. Panting, he fists through the glass - it is a hot sharp pain. He’s dripping blood, but he pulls himself through the window. It’s a two story drop.

_Jump. Jump now or die._ The ghoul hisses.

Harry leaps, and for that one moment, he is flying, and it is the most free he has ever been. The ground is coming closer and closer and-

Like being squeezed through a tube of toothpaste, like the heavy walls of space pressing on him from all sides, he appears with a loud _crack_ , back in the park. Aurora, still sleeping, none the wiser. 

Harry lies down on the dewy earth and shakes all over. He breathes as if he’s catching up for all the air his lungs missed. He can’t sleep that day, not a wink, and neither can the ghoul, who sits and watches for dangers.

It looks like being free of the Dursleys isn’t the same as safety, after all.

-o-

He stuffs that entire encounter so deep into the box that it's almost like it never happened.

_Almost._

Harry’s nightmares have a new visitor. The reedy gormless looking kid with a taste for murder and drowning. He has a bruise on the back of his neck, and is sore in places he’d long since given up on being protected territory. He is tight and quiet and refuses to sleep unless Aurora is already awake and on look-out. She says nothing about it, does not inquire about where his latest bruises came from, and in a strange way, that causes Harry to trust her more. As if he could tell her anything, show her anything, and like the guards at Buckingham Palace, she would not even blink.

Aurora starts buying sticks of butter, and nutritional yeast, and peanut butter, and thick loaves of sweet bread. She says, _you are a walking skeleton, Harry, and in a few months, it will be snowing in London. You need a layer of fat to protect you._ Well, of course she doesn’t actually _say_ that, but she does make him 5 heavy sandwiches a day, and glares until he eats them, even if he looks green enough to puke, even if it takes him over an hour to finish half of one. Aurora doesn’t say much at all, unless Harry prompts her with a question, and even then, it’s a 50/50 chance that she’ll just grunt and say nothing at all. 

Aurora sleeps for 5 hours at a time. Harry watches her, sometimes. It reminds him that he’s alive when she’s alive. Her breathing slows to the point where she breathes 5 times per minute. Around the third hour of sleep, her eyes begin to flicker open and closed, and she sings softly, in her sleep, in a language of guttural growls and groans that Harry doesn’t understand. Then, at midday, she wakes up and scouts the perimeter of the park or bus stop or abandoned lot or public bathroom or garbage bin they’re sleeping in. She nods at Harry, once, maybe twice, and then reads whatever book she’s lifted earlier in the night for 2 hours. Harry sleeps, then, sometimes. Sometimes he stays awake and watches her read, watches how expressive her face becomes. Not in the traditional way - she doesn’t smile, she doesn’t frown - but her eyes seem to glow, the longer and deeper she gets inside a book. He wants to capture that feeling and feast on it, but no matter how long he stares, all he feels is tired and wrung.

At night, Aurora is all business. She has many associates around London, who she sells stolen copper wiring too, or steel pipes cut out from abandoned lots, or the metal part of a wheel. Her regulars are now used to the thin, mute boy who travels alongside her. Harry is now used to them.

Fuckface, Aurora’s least favourite regular, has horrific burn scars all along his eyes and jaw. _A present from an old friend_ , he’d once sneered at Harry once he’d caught him looking. Fuckface mostly buys metals which he then uses for parts in his weapons business. He always flashes his gun tucked in his belt at Aurora, before they do business, and she always flashes her fangs. 

Shithead, now, Aurora is quite fond of her. Shithead never looks at Harry, never even mentions his presence. She treats him like Aurora’s handbag, or maybe less than that, she treats him like thin air, as if she could walk right through him. Aurora relies on her for income, as Shithead requires new wheels and stolen car parts every week. She has never missed a meeting to get drunk and rob a bank like Fuckface, and she always treats Aurora like a business associate, rather than a kid. She does not bring a gun to their meetings - but if she did, she probably keeps it concealed. Harry is the most afraid of her quiet confidence.

Aurora’s last London regular meets with her almost 6 times a week. He is Harry’s least favourite, as he always leers at him and draws in close, never missing an opportunity to try and bargain with Aurora and grope him. He’s offering more money every week - more than Harry is worth, he knows - but Aurora is somehow unflinching. He buys whatever Aurora offers and has too much cash to splash around. Harry thinks he just likes the power he holds over Aurora - he gets off on it, probably. She doesn’t complain, but her eyes don’t smile like they do with Shithead. This regular hasn’t even been given a nickname. She refers to him as _him_ or _tonight’s client_.

They have fallen into a rhythm. Harry is no less haunted, no less stuck in his skin, but he’s starting to think of the ghoul as an imaginary friend. A strange figment of his imagination. And things that occurred only last month feel more and more distant. He has all new challenges to face - ones related to eating and working and remaining undetected. They are less about coping with torture, with being an empty vessel that receives torment, less about being a walking secret, he realises. He thinks a lot about what is demanded of him by the world, by Aurora - the next building they’ll need to hit, how many sandwiches he can try and eat today without throwing up, finding a safe place to sleep. They have enough money to live on, and Harry is gaining weight and feeling warmer at night. It is closing in on September, he can tell by how the plants have slowed their growth and the leaves are starting to turn brown. Autumn incoming - the world halts for no man.

But the rhythm gets interrupted. And the music stops.

-o-

There is a reason that they sleep in a new location every night. Harry has never voiced this, but he understands the need for subterfuge very deeply. He knows that you are only truly safe when you are hidden, when you are locked in and protected in a small cramped space like a cupboard or an alcove or a gutter, when no one knows where you are and no one can touch you. He also knows that if CPS ever gets a phone call about two runaway kids, that they cannot remain where they once were. They cannot be found because if they are, not only will Harry be returned to the Dursleys’ _loving care_ but Aurora will disappear, like a candle snuffed out, and will only remain in his memories. 

He sees monsters in shadows - and sometimes, he knows he is correct. He is not paranoid, but reasonable. People _are_ out to get him. People do want to kidnap him, to dismember him, to torture him, to use him as a sex object. He can list off their names, their methods. That Kid Who Tried To Drown Me - death by water torture and a side of sex and knives in his soft flesh, Uncle Vernon - death by his soul coming undone, death by every unfathomable thing you wouldn’t wish on anyone, Aunt Petunia - death by shame, death by frying pan, death by standing by as an indiscriminant figure ties him down until he chokes, _The Powers That Be_ \- death by locking him in a haunted house and orchestrating his undoing, death by mystery and bribery and assasinations. 

Harry wishes he weren’t so young, so young and wide-eyed and made of porcelain. He wishes his skin was hard like a crab’s shell, like Aurora’s turtle beak, like a suit of armour he wore with him always. He wishes he had no mouth, no genitals, no thighs, no hands, no body at all. Nothing that could be used in any shape or form. He wishes he was translucent like water, thin like a spider’s web, untouchable.

And sometimes (often, more and more often, even though the danger has passed - _but in a sense, the danger will never pass, and he will always be prey_ ) when he passes bodies of water or bath tubs or the smell of mothballs or Aunt Petunia’s perfume or when he sees a Batman comic strip or when Aurora stands too close or says his name in a way that makes him paranoid or when he’s sleeping (and there is no escaping dreams) or when someone smells like wine or crisp bacon or when big beefy men walk near him on the street - or even on the opposite side of the street, or even when a shadow almost resembles a person - his wish is granted. He is reminded of what it feels like to die, to die over and over again. And Harry disappears, his body loses form, and he is but a cloud of dust particles blown into the air. He cannot feel a thing, he is under permanent anesthetic. His whole body is a dead spot.. No one can touch him, not even if they tried.

How can you touch the boy who doesn’t have a body, after all?

-o-

It is barely dawn, and Aurora is patting down a pile of leaves - getting ready for bed. She’s had a long night of pickpocketing tourists and fishing soggy half-eaten fish and chips from the bins. Harry was on lookout duty, as always. He’s good at it because everyone is a possible threat - so Aurora knows he will sound all the alarms in the world if someone even so much as looks at them funny. She’d said, nose wrinkled, as they walked under some dingy graffitied underpass, _The thing about half-eaten fish and chips, is these are the ones that people threw away because they weren’t right. Couldn’t even be bothered to finish them._ Lying in their own oils for a few hours hadn’t made them any more palatable, but Harry could hardly complain. Fish was protein was life was survival. Chips was oil was fat was warmth was sleep.

They’re camping out under a pebble bridge near the River Thames. The river is cold and choppy and the wind sprays them in sudden bursts. It’s a lively place - so lively, he starts to wonder if he should start fishing for fish or boots or purposely misplaced children. It’s a long way down to the murky bottom, after all, who knows what treasures lie beneath. Harry sits perched on the edge of the bank, the wet compact soil biting into his thighs. He rubs his hands together, and blows into them. He thinks no matter what he feels now, he will be missing nights like this when a sharp Autumn is well and truly underway.

Riverside, he’d thought he’d be uncomfortable. That he’d stay as far away from the water as possible, since Harry jumps at every puddle and lake with the ghost of a hand holding his neck down. But he finds himself sitting right at the knife’s edge, peering down into the depths below. A feeling of _I’mgoingtodie_ runs through him, but he lets it. He doesn’t mind the idea of dying, after all, so what is there to fear?

A white flapping creature is swooping right towards him. The early morning sun reflects off its feathers, but Harry is leery over the glint of its sharp claws.

_An owl?_ It lands right beside him. Cocks its head. Wants something from him. 

_Oh, everybody wants something from me…_

Harry and the owl stare at one another. _Hello, alien being,_ they say to one another, across the divide. 

He whispers, throat tacky from trying to be quiet and unseen and safe, “What do you want?” Harry tells himself it’s not silly to be frightened of an owl - they’re strong, capable creatures who eat mice and other squirmy things for breakfast. This one is bigger than him. Harry can be very squirmy.

The owl hoots, and dances on the spot, impatiently. It keeps moving its right leg. 

_What’s that?_ Harry sees a small letter tied to its leg with a thin red ribbon. He reaches out, but thinks better of it. _Don’t harass wild animals. It’s dangerous._

The owl squawks, shaking its head, as if he _is_ harassing it. It starts to peck at its leg. Harry doesn’t intervene, rather watching, waiting, seeing how far the owl will go, if it might eat through its own foot. _It’s harder than you think,_ he wants to say, _hurting yourself. Your brain wants you to stop, after a while. It hurts._ Harry imagines how excruciating it might’ve been if he’d tried to slit his wrists by biting through his arm, gnawing on it for hours. He guesses the owl has a beak, which is sharper than human teeth. _An unfair advantage._

Morbidly, he wants to see what colour and consistency owl blood is. To see how thick it is, how fast its heart beats. It’s been a while, now, since he’s seen blood.

But the owl stops after it's bitten through the ribbon and then flies off huffily. He watches it fly until it’s merely a speck in the distance. 

_Post? For me?_ Harry picks up a stick and pokes it, once, twice. He flips it over.

_To Mr. H. Potter,_

_The riverbank beside the Thames,_

_Under Chiswick Bridge,_

_London._

_Definitely and weirdly specifically for me._

It is _just_ a letter, and unless there’s poison gas trapped inside, it’s fine to open, right? He feels a little giddy. He never gets post. He sorts through the mail everyday except Sundays 

(and he is glad for this small mercy, as he is barely capable of breathing on Sundays as the thick nauseating anticipation for the evening draws nearer and Aunt Petunia makes herself scarce and Harry is expected to wait and lie in his cupboard and try not to die from hyperventilating, already reliving every Sunday Evening before this one, already feeling the bruises and tender places and desperate detachedness)

and everyday except Sundays he sorts through the mail and imagines that his name was written on one of the envelopes. That someone knew him well enough to send a letter. That he existed in someone’s brain to such a degree that they had to write to _him_. 

A part of him doesn’t want to open it, doesn’t want to get in trouble. He feels like he’s committing a dangerous action when fingers the closed mouth of the envelope. Like someone is about to pop up and cuff him across the head and call him a _greedy little thief who should have his fingers broken_ . Like Aunt Petunia is watching him from the kitchen with her beady little eyes and is about to shout _I caught you, you ugly horrid boy! No food or light for a month!._ This feeling is so strong, so intense, that it won’t leave him alone until he follows the compulsion to look around him to see if she is watching him.

He can’t say no one is there, because the streetlamps (still on, this early in the morning) are watching him, and the last traces of stars from above, and maybe someone peeking out through their curtain or over their black lacquer terrace. He can’t say for certain that he is alone, so he is, essentially, not alone. He is never really alone, because he drags every person who’s managed to break a part of him behind him. 

He wants to throw the letter into the Thames and be done with it. But there is a burning need to know what it says. Especially since it is addressed to him. 

_No_ , says the ghoul. It feels soft and barely there, like waking from a dream. It had been quiet for so long that Harry had liked to think it was only an imaginary friend. Not a voice in his head who gives orders that he is obliged to follow. _Do not open strange letters that fall from the sky._ It sounds like common sense when you say it like that. 

Harry nods, glad the decision is out of his hands. Promptly, with little reluctance, he throws the letter into the roaring Thames. The river swallows it - used to people throwing in their unwanted things.

No need to mention this strange incident to Aurora. _It’s over and done with, after all. Owls can only deliver your post once in a lifetime, just like lightning can’t strike you twice in a row._

-o-

The next day, however, letters keep falling from the sky. And they don’t seem to be stopping. It’s raining ink and mysteries. If it were raining cats and dogs, maybe he wouldn't be so hungry. Paper has, did you know, zero nutritional value. Harry is rich in fool's gold. 

Two owls, this time, who swoop down and drop the letters directly overhead. There is no red string, this time, only tightly gripped talons and crinkled parchment. Aurora turns a blind eye to the paper once Harry drops it down a sewer grate, but her eyes seem to say _last chance. Then we talk._

There are four owls this time, like a flock of pigeons crowding around an abandoned picnic or seagulls fighting for scraps at the seaside. They scrabble and squawk at one another - _take my letter, now!_ Aurora cannot just shrug and keep on walking when four letters are dropped by his feet. She stops, kneels down and picks one up, reads aloud the detailed address.

“To Mr. Harry Potter, on the steps, outside the House of Minalima, 26 Greek Street, London, W1D 5DE.” 

Discerningly, crisply, she says, “You don’t have to read it, but it is concerning that they know your exact location. Concerning for _me_ , not just you.” Then, she hands Harry the envelope.

With trembling fingers, at the ghoul’s drawn out _get rid of it_ , Harry throws the letters onto the roof, one by one, like paper airplanes that he never had enough whimsy to make. 

The letters follow him to a youth hostel, to a church graveyard, to the subway, to a public library storage room. Every day, without fail, the numbers double, and are found in the most unusual places. 8 tucked under the mattress of the youth hostel’s bottom bunk, 16 in a bouquet leant against _Dr. Jakob Mizrahi_ ’s grave, 32 flood out of a vending machine when he buys an orange fizzy, 64 tucked between the pages of a book he checks out. 

The letters keep coming - and Harry is constantly followed by a flock of owls, all screaming at him, _pick me, pick me, pick my letter, I am the chosen owl, hoot, I am the chosen one. Hoot._ And it’d be funny if he weren’t so worried about bird flu. 

Aurora likes to use them as kindling, as catharsis, as target practice, as bedding. Harry wants nothing to do with them, and his skin crawls when he recognises the cursive print that says _I know where you are. You can’t hide from me. You will never be safe._

Aurora likes to set up owl traps. Big bulky metal boxes, bird coops where they can rest after a long flight. At first, they’d caught a few, and bashed their skull in with a rock, plucked their feathers, and feasted for days. But the owls learnt, and none of her latest traps, not even with bird treats or touch sensitive snapping jaws, can catch the birds. Their eyes glint at her with something like betrayal - but Harry doesn’t care. It’s a bird-eat-bird world, and they are always living meal to meal.

_No._ The ghoul snaps, as he tries to pull a letter from their loose tinder box. _Do you want her to die? Do you want to be a slave and a pet and a body again? Do you hate the freedom I’ve given you?_

Harry snarls back, **_I_ ** _brought us out. You sat there, on my shoulder, and watched me die. Over and over. I think I should be allowed to see what’s in one._

The ghoul, who never replies to the boy it’s leaching off, who never speaks up when Harry wants him to, who has seen him in his dirtiest most savage moments, says, _trust._

Harry is touched, and reluctantly puts the letter back. He knows how much the ghoul likes to pretend it doesn’t exist. He knows, deep down, however inhuman and grotesque and brittle it seems, that it holds his humanity in its hands. He may not understand why reading this letter would be so wrong of him, but he knows one thing - _trust_.

-o-

In an abandoned newspaper, he reads a story about a twelve-year-old girl being drowned in East London. He pretends he doesn't know anything about that. That he is just another innocent reader delighting in the gorey tales on the front page. That there was nothing he could've done.

_Better her than me._

Aurora uses the story for kindling and doesn’t comment. Harry guesses it’s not important, after all. 

-o-

It shouldn’t happen today. 

The sky is glowing, birds flitting and humming, jumping from branch to branch. It is the perfect fresh Autumn morning - not a cloud in the sky. Beatific, the type of day poets write about as examples of divinity, as a reason why you should believe in heaven. 

“It’s hot,” is the first thing Aurora has said for three days, hands red-raw from picking wires all night, as she collapses down under a dappled deciduous many-handed tree. But, she doesn’t seem to be complaining as she stretches back on the wood and scratches her back against it. She falls asleep quicker than usual.

Harry keeps look-out, picking at his fingers. He can feel a hummingbird in his chest because _no letters have come today._ He doesn’t know what it _means_. He nibbles on some stale fairy bread they found in a bin outside the bakery. It’s sweet and crunches in his teeth.

_Calm_ , says the ghoul. But Harry knows what that means. When the ghoul is up and about and _speaking_ , things are about to get _dangerous_ . His body stiffens like preemptive rigor mortis. _I am the living ghost boy._

It is a feeling in the air, he realises. Harry looks up into the trees and notices all the birds have fled. There is no one in the park - no witnesses, human or otherwise. Even the wind is withdrawn and pensive. Watchful. _Who goes there?_

Harry stands, and does something he promised himself he’d never do - he wakes Aurora from her sleep.

Immediately, her eyes open. She’s living once again. She sits up, straight, stares, “What’d you do?”

Harry jerks his head around the park, (her eyes widen at the lack of life, at the quiet suspense brewing - _good, she can see it too_ ), and repeats after the ghoul, “ _Run. Run. They’ve found me._ ”

Resolute, like she’s a doomsday prepper that’s been dreaming of catastrophe ever since they fled, Aurora tucks the copper wiring - hot from conducting the midday heat - into her raggedy brown pants stolen from a washing line long ago. She tells him, over her shoulder, like a promise, like a duty she’d tried to forsake, “I won’t tell you when, but I will find you.”

Harry gulps, and can’t bear to see where she runs, in what direction, to what part of the park. The less he knows, the safer she is. Shakily, Harry sits on the bench, and stares into his hands.

_Now, we wait._ There’s no use in running, not from the powers above. He’s been ignoring their incoming presence for weeks, ever since the letters started, but a part of him always knew there was no such thing as freedom.

_Come quiet, come peacefully, and maybe I’ll be allowed to keep my_ _memories_.

And that is the last thought he remembers, that day. Looking at the naked trees and sending a wish into the cosmos. 


End file.
